Seven Swords by Michael E. Shea (the speed reading book .TXT) 📕

“I pulled my offhand dagger and pushed it up under his chin into his brain.

“‘Hello Jon,’ Marcus said as though not a single day had passed since we were both Gray Wolves hunting Voth. I aimed my loaded gun at him. He still held a vial of dark orange liquid in his right hand. A stream of the stuff dripped down the crone’s breasts, eating the skin away where it ran. I wanted to vomit. I shot him in his left eye instead. This was a man I knew well. He had saved my life before. He was never a good man, none of us were, but I once called him a friend and I shot him in the face without even thinking about it. Thinking back later, I realized that he could have killed me while I was wrestling with the big man, but he didn’t. I will never know why.

“I took one of Marcus’s pistols and shot the crone. I don’t know if it was mercy or vengeance. I just did it. I went out back. Already the town gathered. I reloaded my pistols and found Susan in the tall grasses. I picked her up, she was so light, and we took one of Marcus’s horses. I collected my remaining meager possessions from the shack and we left.

“I realized a lot of things as we traveled. I never should have survived that fight. The agent of the Eye should have felt me coming, should have known I was there. The others depended on it. He also should have known Susan was there. They shouldn’t have needed to torture the crone. The agent should have been able to rip it from her mind. It was Susan. She blocked them, not just from herself but from me. They only saw what she wanted them to see.

“We didn’t talk much as we traveled. She’s never talked much. Jon looked at Susan and smiled. “I saw a lot of things those nights. I can’t even talk about some of them. I’ve been through a lot in my life but the things Susan has seen scared the hell out of me. Other things she showed me had more beauty than I have ever known.”

“So we traveled to Fena Kef but they found us there too. I don’t know how far we’ll have to go to get out of the sight of the Eye but we’re ready to go there.”

The group was silent. The red sun had set and the huge red moon had risen. Cresting on one side was the darker black moon, the demon moon. Ca’daan felt cold.

“What does that mean?” Ca’daan asked. He felt sick.

“It means she’s a mindwalker,” said Thorn.

They continued to sit in silence. Ca’daan kept his eyes down and he was aware that others did the same. No one looked at Susan. Adrin broke the silence.

“You can read people’s minds?” His voice sounded different, there was no cheer or bravado. He was frightened.

“Yes.” Her voice was small and high, it was a child’s voice. It made Ca’daan want to cry. San’doro stood. His movements were carefully measured. Ca’daan saw Jon’s eyes on the little dark man. One of Jon’s hands moved under his cloak. The fire San’doro had made cracked. It painted them all in orange light. Ca’daan glanced up and saw Susan’s face, round and smooth, with her red hair spilling out of the sides of her hood.

San’doro approached her and sat down, his hands in his lap. The man smiled at her but she did not smile back.

“What am I thinking now, child?” he asked the question quietly and without sarcasm or anger.

“You’re thinking about making love to a woman. The air is warm. You are near a small rock in the middle of the desert. There are caves in the rock with other people. She’s on top of you, moving forward and back. She’s smiling but her eyes are closed. She’s calling someone else’s name. She’s calling you Dainan.”

San’doro looked at her a long time.

“Gods below,” whispered Adrin. He looked to Jon and then turned to the Kal instead. “What do we do?”

The Kal shrugged. His eyes were on the child.

“There are some other things you should know,” said Jon. “She walks through minds, entire lifetimes in some cases. She learns from them. She’s probably smarter than any of us. She’s been to every city in the north and south. She can recognize the emperor of Faigon and the king of Gazu Kadem by sight. Her memories stretch back over one hundred years. But she is still a child. She knows these things but she doesn’t understand them the way we do.

“These things also hurt her. Touching over the surface of someone’s mind is one thing. Going deep is another. Projection and manipulation is a third.”

“Wait. Projection?” asked Adrin. “She can talk to us?”

YES.

They all heard it. Ca’daan saw Adrin and San’doro jump. The word had filled his head as though the girl had whispered directly into both ears. Ca’daan felt his whole body start to shake.

Adrin’s eyes were on the girl. The young swordsman was completely off balance. Of all of them, Vrenna and Thorn seemed the most calm. How did they know? What had they discussed that caused them to come down and confront Jon about her?

“How far can you do that?” asked San’doro. In the corner of his eye, Ca’daan saw Jon smile. San’doro was on to something.

“Anywhere I can see. Further is harder or if I can’t see them, that’s harder too,” Susan spoke more words than she had since they met.

“Can you only speak or can you show us things too?” asked San’doro. They were quiet for a moment and then San’doro jerked.

“Bathala’s breath!” said the dark man.

“What did you see?” asked Adrin.

“I saw Jon. It was two nights ago when we killed the slave lord,” San’doro said. He stared at the ground and then turned to Jon. “You were on a hill. You had your pistol resting on your knee. You fired. It was deafening. A whipmaster fell a great distance away. That was an amazing shot.”

Jon turned and looked to each of them.

“It is important that you understand this. Susan can see and hear your thoughts. The masters at the tower of the Eye have ways to stop it but it would be very hard to stop one as strong as she. We have no such training. Her ability would have her shunned or burned in most of the cities in this desert. North she would be captured by the Eye. They would take her to their dungeons where they would drive a metal spike into her brain just above each eye. They would put leeches on her that they fed off of strange mushrooms to control what is left of her mind. They would cut off her arms and legs. They would use her as a conduit to speak across the land. They have done this before. This is how they won the Voth war. They would tell you it was rifles and pistols that won the war but it isn’t true. The ability to command multiple armies at the same time, the ability to communicate across the land instantaneously, that won the war.

“The girls they use, the girls like Susan, don’t live past sixteen or seventeen. They stop eating. They go blind. They can’t function. At the end they are taken apart while still alive so the Eye can study how they work. What is left is fed to the new ones in the hopes that some part of their power is absorbed.”

Ca’daan vomited. The taste of bile hung in his throat. The others looked ashen.

“You saw all of this?” asked San’doro.

“No,” said Jon. “She did. She saw it in the minds of the men at the tower. She fled and she showed it to me.”

“If you tell anyone about what she can do, they will find her. You must keep it secret. If I find out that you told anyone, I’ll kill you.” The threat hung in the air, not spoken with anger or boast but direct and full of truth.

Jon turned to Ca’daan.

“You brought us together,” said Jon. “You brought together six fighters in the south desert to defend your town.” Jon pointed at Susan. “She is the most powerful of all of us. You saw maybe one hundred to one hundred and fifty of them. Six of us cannot defeat them. With her, we can.”

“You know what you know now,” said Jon. “If you want us to leave, we will be gone tomorrow. If you want us to stay and others want to leave, they can leave. If we stay together, we can kill them all. We can save Fena Dim.”

Jon turned and beheld Ca’daan for a long time. Silence hung over the eight travelers. Ca’daan took a deep breath.

“I want you to stay.”